


Black Grease, White Teeth

by momoejaku



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Damian tinkering away on the batmobile while suffering in silence, Gen, bonding over sucky shared experience as Robin, dick is a good older bro and notices?, dick: let me look after u pls my lil bro bat, grumpier than usual, living in batman's shadow is tough, sweet anger child is in pain be patient with him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-11 21:37:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10474977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/momoejaku/pseuds/momoejaku
Summary: Dick notices that Damian is acting moodier than usual and tries to be a good older brother. Damian ends up throwing a wrench at him.





	

Something was wrong with Damian. And Dick could tell.

He watched the ten-year-old, who was now scowling in righteous anger at the metal gears of the batmobile’s engine as he attempted to fix a leaky valve cover. Curses drifted over the clanging and scraping of metal as boy fought the machine, determined to subdue the monster of a car with his own tinkering fingers. 

Dick tapped his own fingers against the desk at the batcomputer before crossing his arms and leaning back in the chair, continuing to observe the scene painted out before him…

Robin’s yellow cape and mask lay discarded in a pile on the cave floor. Damian had rolled his sleeves up to his knobbly elbows. He didn’t seem to mind that his uniform now had smudges of black grease all over it; though a certain butler would certainly mind a great deal later, no doubt. 

The boy swiped at his nose with the back of his hand, leaving a dark smudge across his face, his small hands grasping the wrench as he ducked back under the engine hood. 

Robin had been in a foul mood throughout the whole of patrol, his retorts even more biting and harsh than was normal, his punches harder, his frown deeper. Whenever Dick had glanced over at him as they flew above the city, he had been met with a face contorted in… something. Pain, anger, frustration… what was going on in that little head of his, Dick didn’t know. 

But he was the Batman now. He had been trained by the the best detective in the world… so he was damn well going to find out. 

Dick leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. 

‘You okay, Dami?’ he probed cautiously from across the cave, trying to keep any unintentional edge of concern or criticism out of his voice. He had learnt quickly that Damian did not respond well to either. 

The boy glared up at him, his deep, green eyes narrowing in mixed contempt and suspicion, as if to warn Dick that he had asked what Damian deemed to be “a stupid question that was hardly worth an answer.”

‘ _Tt_. I’m fine,’ he said instead, then returned to twisting the wrench around in a tightening motion, practiced, relaxed. 

But his face was still fixed in a perpetual grimace that was uncharacteristically pained. 

Dick pursed his lips, watching him. ‘You’ve been really moody tonight… moodier than usual.’

The wrench clanged against the car as Damian sat up and clicked his tongue again. ‘I told you, Grayson: I’m. _Fine_. Do you need me to spell it out for you? Or perhaps translate it into your native tongue of dim-wittedness?’

Dick sighed, giving the angry boy a small roll of the eyes. He had grown so accustomed to Damian’s insults, they weren’t even insulting anymore… and though it wasn’t the best way to respond to him, sometimes it was difficult to not reciprocate the insults with his own light-hearted humour and quick tongue. Especially after a long night on patrol.  

‘Do I need to translate my question into “stubborn childishness” for you?’

Damian spluttered, throwing incoherent mutterings into the echoing cave before resorting to turning away from his nuisance of an older brother. 

Dick gave a short laugh, and went to turn back to the computer when he paused. Damian’s lips were puckered as his tongue pressed up against the side of his cheek, moving around. No, not the side of his cheek… the back of his gums. 

‘Is something wrong with your mouth, Dames?’ Dick asked cooly.

Damian froze, his cheeks flushed as he straightened his mouth and looked up at Dick in disdain. The two brothers stared at each other for one long beat, before Dick grinned widely.

‘Your molars are coming in, aren’t they? You’ve been in pain for the whole day and were too embarrassed to tell me or Alfred,’ he said. 

The boy said nothing, turning away and staring into the darkness of the cave as he considered whether or not he could deny Dick’s accusation. He reluctantly admitted that he could not, and there would be no point in hiding it anyways. 

So instead he simply mumbled: ‘It’s hard to focus on controlling one’s emotions when your biological programming and timeline of growth betrays you…’

Dick smiled in spite of himself. Emotional regulation was something they had discussed at great length ever since they had started working together as Batman and Robin months ago. It was something Dick had asked Damian to work on for himself, and he knew that Damian had been trying his best to control his outbursts of rage and fear and anger and frustration. He had been improving, and Dick was proud beyond belief that he admitted it was something he had been working on.

‘C’mon,’ Dick nodded towards the med bay set-up they had in the cave. ‘I’ve got a home remedy for that.’

‘As long as it does not impair my cognitive abilities or lull me to sleep,’ Damian grumbled, throwing the wrench down to the ground and following after Dick begrudgingly. ‘I have work to do tonight on our cases.’

‘God forbid I inadvertently cause a ten-year-old to get _a decent night’s sleep_ ,’ Dick said under his breath, rummaging around in the medicine cabinet and knocking a few bottles full of pills over in the process. ‘Hm… well, Alfie doesn’t seem to have it. But I wonder if… Aha! Here it is…’

Damian scowled at his back. ‘Cease your inane babbling, Grayson, and show me the damn medicine.’ 

Dick dangled the odd-shaped bottle with its green cap in front of Damian’s tiny grease-smudged nose. The boy squinted at it dubiously. 

‘“Anaesthetic throat spray?”’ he frowned. ‘My throat is perfectly healthy.’

‘Yeah, but you can use it for toothaches too. Usually there’s a gel made especially for sore teeth, but I guess we haven’t needed it for a while. They both contain Benzocaine though, just… this one’s a spray.’

Damian nodded thoughtfully, the chemical breakdown of the compound forming in his head as he recalled its properties and purposes. ‘I see. Well it can hardly cause me any more harm than these accursed teeth already are.’ 

He held out a hand for the bottle, but Dick shook his head and smiled.

‘I don’t want you to use too much.’

‘I won’t,’ Damian growled, growing frustrated, his voice strained and tense as he clutched the edge of the metal operating table. ‘But I’m not letting you play doctor with me.’

‘Damian.’

_‘Grayson.’_

And so began the stand-off. 

Dick knew the exact words to say that would put an end to it: 

_If you don’t obey me, I’ll bench you._

But he also knew that once he had said those words, Damian would lose all the faith and mutual trust that had been built up between them these past few months, meagre though it was. He would feel that, if he didn’t follow Dick’s every word to the letter and silently comply, he didn’t deserve to be Robin. 

It was a feeling Dick remembered all too well, glancing over at that yellow cape that lay neglected on the dank floor of the cave. It was no fault of Bruce’s. That insecurity, that feeling, that _lie_ , was part and parcel of being Robin. 

The fear of failure and inadequacy, the expectations placed on oneself from such a young age, the pressure to live up to this immense shadow that always flew before them in the night sky while on patrol… and Dick didn’t want to add to the pressure he knew Damian already placed on himself. The two-fold pressure that he had been born into as both an al Ghul and a Wayne, and the burdens he now carried upon his small back as Robin. 

Also, being a rebellious ten-year-old didn’t exactly help. 

But it wasn’t his job to “fix” Damian’s rebelliousness. Nor was it his job to tip-toe around the boy’s feelings and emotions in an attempt to avoid confrontation. 

It _was_ his job, to show Damian that everything he did, he did out of love and a desire to protect him. 

So Dick stood there, took a deep breath, and tried again. 

‘Damian,’ he repeated, more gently this time. 

And the boy’s expression seemed to soften, his eyes widening as he heard the probing undertones, as his mind began to process what they meant, translating them with creased eyebrows as he studied the shifts, and tonal emphasis and voice level… 

_It is not an order, it is a request. This is something that is important to Dick in some way. This simple action. Caring for me._

Damian grew tense at this realisation and turned away from Dick, his expression gone sour, heart beating in anger, hurting more than his tooth, more than any of the wounds he’d ever gotten before as Robin, or even in his violent upbringing.

This, this was an old wound. A wound that groaned as it reopened, blood spilling out in a red cacophony of hues, spluttering in repetition. That one word. Over, and over, and over…

 _Unworthy._  it whispered. _You are unworthy of love._

‘I…’ Damian stuttered, low and gruff, trying to hide, trying to fill the silence and bring both of their thoughts away from his own childish, naive inner turmoil. ‘I can do it myself.’

‘I know, Damian. But if it’s okay, I’d like to do it for you.’

 _‘Why?’_ Damian pressed bitterly.

Dick hesitated, considering Damian’s question as if the “why” of his insistence hadn’t even crossed his mind. In truth, it hadn’t. 

He sighed and held Damian’s gaze, his own face tired and lined with too many pains of his own. 

‘I feel like, it’s important, Damian. For you… for us. And I think that, deep down, you know that it is. You know why you’re hesitating and being stubborn about this.’

Damian opened his mouth to deny it, to scoff and throw out sarcasm like the daggers he kept in his room. To hide his trembling upper lip and the tears burning at the corners of his eyes. He swallowed the words that had suddenly refused to come out, stuck to his throat like a bitter aftertaste, his chest tightened, as if it were being squeezed in harsh circular motions with a wrench.

But he would rather die of embarrassment than cry in front of Dick.

So he opened his mouth in compliance, tapping the right side of his mouth to indicate where the source of pain was as he tilted his head back. 

Dick moved closer, and Damian averted his eyes with an annoyed grunt so that he didn’t have to stare at his brother’s ridiculous grin. 

‘Hold your breath,’ Dick said, then sprayed the back of Damian’s gum three times.

The anaesthetic worked almost immediately, relieving much of the pain Damian had been feeling in a mere matter of seconds. He ran his tongue of the numbed ridges of white teeth and irritated gums as Dick put the cap back on the bottle with a snap, and replaced it in the medicine cabinet. 

‘You probably would have sprayed yourself in the eye,’ he said lightly, making his way back over to the batcomputer. ‘Also, Alfred is _not_ gonna be happy about you ruining your Robin uniform.’

Damian looked down at the grease-streaked mess that was his shirt, the R-symbol all but smudged out by the dark, oily substance and clicked his tongue.

‘Damn.’

‘Swear jar!’ Dick called from across the cave without turning around, pointing at the half-filled jar of coins and bills that was balanced precariously on a stack of manila folders and police reports. 

‘Bite me,’ the ten-year-growled in response before lobbing the wrench at the Batman’s head.  


End file.
